Families of the ten miners trapped in Coahuila signed an agreement to receive compensation

This Wednesday marked 4 weeks since 10 workers were trapped in the Pinabete mine in Sabinas, Coahuila, and after Civil Protection authorities were unable to carry out the rescue, the federal government reached an agreement with the families, which was signed that same day, according to Laura Velázquez Alzúa, national coordinator of Civil Protection.

The document that establishes the commitments by the federal government was signed by the widows of the ten workers during a meeting with Laura Velázquez, and in it, they accepted financial compensation, which will not be revealed for now. They also authorized the construction of an open pit to recover the bodies of the workers, a task that will last from six to eleven months, according to calculations.

It was also indicated that this economic compensation will only be for widows and will not be extended to the five workers who managed to get out of the accident alive that occurred on August 3.

At Wednesday’s meeting, it was also agreed to hold a mass in memory of the victims, which will be officiated privately next Saturday, September 3, near the wells where they were trapped.

In an interview, some relatives commented on Tuesday that they did not sign the first proposal because the sheet they were given did not have a seal, date, or amount of compensation, which is why they decided to leave it blank when they saw certain irregularities in the document.

It is expected that in the next few days the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) will arrive at the site to analyze the studies in order to create a deep cut that may allow reaching where the workers were trapped approximately 60 meters deep. According to calculations made by the authorities, this work would take from 6 to 11 months.

Last Monday, the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said that relatives of miners would be compensated more than conventional, and detailed that they would be given a larger amount not only because of the injury they suffered but because of the situation of poverty they face.

After almost four weeks of anguish, some family members have already broken up the camps that they had set up near the mine to await rescue, however, they are expected to return to the mass on September 3, the day that marks one month of this tragedy.

Questioned about the official information about the true owner of the El Pinabete mine, Laura Velázquez said that this issue is handled by another Secretary of State and noted that the information will be released in the following week.

This weekend, the President of the Republic, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, entrusted the excavation work in El Pinabete to Manuel Bartlett, head of the Federal Electricity Commission, an agency that is also in charge of rescuing 63 miners who remain trapped in Pasta de Conchos since 2006.

Relatives of Pasta de Conchos assured that the plan to rescue the miners of El Pinabete presented by the federal government through Civil Protection is destined to fail because the CFE has no experience in this type of operation and demanded that they allow true experts in the field to draw up a project to recover the bodies.

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